You’ll often hear me complain about college and the current facilities. Today, i had a look around a brand new multi million euro development on campus which will house DKIT‘s computing department (amongst others) starting in September 2010.
If you hear ‘multi million euro redevelopment’ these days, you instantly expect ‘world class’ – i know that’s what i did. But that’s exactly what i got today. The place is virtually flawless at first glance. I’m very impressed and it takes a lot to impress me 🙂
Just a bit of background before i go any further – in 2002, the college (DKIT) bought an old cigarette factory adjacent to the college campus for €16m (The Carrolls Building). €20m of government funding has been pumped in to it’s redevelopment and starting in September 2010, it will house the computing / multimedia / music students.
So what will they see once they walk through those doors? Here’s a sneak, exclusive, preview…
As you can see, it’s a very impressive building on the inside. The second i walked in i thought ‘art gallery’. It has that plain, simple, modern arty type feel. High ceilings, plenty of white, neutral colours and clever use of light.
Overall, i left very impressed. There’ll be brand new equipment going in too over the summer so come September 2010, the facilities really will be world class. However, it’s no good to the people leaving this year or that have left over the past few years… they’ll be furious once they see this place 
You can also argue that if €20m was being pumped in to the redevelopment, surely some loose change could have been put in to the web services / or department websites. To the best of my knowledge, i’m also the only person that has put photos up online of this building and has shared them with the world (might be wrong on that, but i couldn’t find any searching all the major image hosts & googling) – why that isn’t happening at the minute is anyone’s guess. Especially when you have a new, exciting development like this… surely you should be selling it and promoting it on the world stage.
It’s progress should have been tracked online from day 1 (in my opinion) and the world (or at the very least the students) should have been kept informed of what was happening and how it was taking shape week by week.
We still haven’t been formally notified that the building is open for viewing (no emails or notices to the best of my knowledge, we just heard from a few lecturers), so the reality is YOU have seen inside this building before most of my fellow students. That’s how it rolls in DKIT 😉
Looks brilliant! Is this the end of dk.itisdown.com before it even starts 🙂 wordpress versus 20m euors!
certainly not… you can change buildings and equipment but that doesn't change people or attitudes 😉 i also found a cracked bit of glass in a door window whilst walking around! Plus the websites are still a mess – so there's still a need for dk.itisdown.com 🙂
It's closing again tomorrow to allow work to begin on the networking end of things.
I was in it today to. Very impressed.
I heard that they aren't bothering to do much about the wireless situation at the moment until Carroll's is all done. Then, they'll do an overhaul.
Dunno how true that it mind 😛
hahaha … thought u wouldn't be given up that easy on your college! itisdown site looks real good now too!
Well, there's no excuse for not getting full a signal everywhere around carrolls (i'm guessing they can spare a few quid for routers) – i'm assuming that's the sort of 'basic' stuff they'll look at… there should be a signal everywhere on campus for starters and there's not.
I think the wifi uptime was reported at 90% or something which itself is doubtful. Go in to e107, e130, e133, s217 and you're screwed. S labs can be hit and miss… doesn't leave much else really 🙂
wooo cant wait to go back now 🙂